FSX-MS Strange lines in LatinVFR KBWI FSX version

[MDFlier 2,031]

I was just wondering if this is something unique to my system, or if others are seeing them. If it is unique to me, where should I start looking? I've run the Scruffyduck Simple Airport Scanner and it did not find any other KBWI scenery. I disabled KBWI in my scenery library, and the default BWI reappears sans lines. I have also toggled every option in the LatinVFR BWI config tool. I have tried 5m, 2m, and 1m mesh settings as well.

They look like might be roads, but up close they look more like a corrupted graphic. In the second picture, you can see that they begin and end within the confines of the scenery.

I'm stumped! Help! 🤯

 

[scianoir 610]

Did you ever add a freeware version of KBWI? If so some files related to it could be still present and causing this issue.

Bill

[MDFlier 2,031]

Bill, I have installed several versions of BWI scenery (probably every freeware version out there) since the initial installation of FSX (SE) on my system. It's my home airport, so I've been looking for enhancements forever. I'm always careful to install any new scenery into it's own folder for easy removal if I don't like it. There's certainly the possibility that there is a rouge file somewhere. That's what I am hoping is causing the problem. There has to be way to find it. I'm trying to avoid doing a reinstall of FSX. I'm actually pretty darn close to getting another SSD and finally making the jump to P3Dv4, so at this point, I'd like to just keep FSX working as it is. I'm finally happy with the configuration.

Additional testing since the initial post. Deleted shaders folder. Deactivated FreemeshX (entirely) in the scenery library and re-ran Vector AEC (KBWI is not listed in either the "enabled" or "disabled" column in AEC, btw... not sure why...). Forced a new Orbx "migration".

I saved a flight in the location for easy testing. Here are before and after shots. All I did was uncheck the LatinVFR KBWI layer in the scenery library. I don't see anything in the default scenery that would cause this. It appears to be completely stock. The last shot is an overhead of the default. No strange lines... Grrr...

 

 

[scianoir 610]

2 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Bill, I have installed several versions of BWI scenery (probably every freeware version out there) since the initial installation of FSX (SE) on my system. It's my home airport, so I've been looking for enhancements forever. I'm always careful to install any new scenery into it's own folder for easy removal if I don't like it

 

2 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Grrr...

I understand your frustration when you come across an annoying issue like that which you can’t solve!!

With freeware scenery which you install yourself you can create your own folder containing all the files for easy removal, as you say, but if the freeware scenery is installed using an automated installer you could find that it placed a file or files somewhere else. A favourite spot for such files is somewhere like the FSX/scenery/world/scenery folder. Although you mentioned that you’ve run the Scruffyduck utility (something with which I am not familiar - I use AFX) to look for other KBWI scenery, if you haven’t already done it, it might be worth also doing a search of your whole FSX installation for any files containing KBWI, BWI or even Baltimore just to see if there are any rogue files lying around outside the Latin VFR KBWI folder. 

Bill

Bill

[fppilot 4,339]

I am still confused about Latin VFR's KBWI. It still on their website appears listed as P3D with no mention of FSX.  I purchased and installed it in FSX and even without any surrounding photo real scenery under it, I suffer from low memory warning bongs.  I do not have that issue with other airports unless I have photoreal activated at the same time, and then only NYC and Los Angeles areas.

Does anyone have verification or validation that LVFR KBWI is FSX compatible?

[MDFlier 2,031]

Update: I tried many other things. I tried switching back to DX9, disabling scenery areas, and a few others. What I DO know is that there are 5 files named Photo01.BGL through Photo05.BGL in the BWI Scenery folder. If I rename numbers 1 through 3 to "Photo0X.BGL.off", the lines do go away. Some of the photo scenery is also gone, of course. I'd fly with it like that, but doing so also causes trees and houses to appear on the transition from taxiway to runway. I've tried all (well, most) of the possible combinations turning off 1 or more of those 5 files. This was as close as I got.

For now, I'm just putting it back to the way that it installed. The lines are only visible in certain places when on the ground, and I'm not in the vicinity of the airport in the air for very long. Overall, I really like this airport. I live in Maryland, and I fly in and out of BWI all the time. It is a well run, easy in, easy out airport in real life, and a pleasure to travel through. LatinVFR did a fine job of it. I can't wait to see it in in P3D.

 

2 hours ago, fppilot said:

I am still confused about Latin VFR's KBWI. It still on their website appears listed as P3D with no mention of FSX.  I purchased and installed it in FSX and even without any surrounding photo real scenery under it, I suffer from low memory warning bongs.  I do not have that issue with other airports unless I have photoreal activated at the same time, and then only NYC and Los Angeles areas.

Does anyone have verification or validation that LVFR KBWI is FSX compatible?

The next photo should help. When you purchase the airport and open the .zip file, there are 2 installers in it. One is "LatinVFR_BaltimoreKBWI_FSX_P3d1-3_1.0.exe" and the other is "LatinVFR_KBWI_P3Dv4_1.1.exe". I installed it in FSX, so here is a screen shot of the user guide for the 32 bit version it installed on my system. As far as the frame rates go, I have not had any issues. They've been mostly in the upper 20s and low 30s. On par with FSDT KIAD and Taxi2Gate's KMCO. 

 

Edited October 18, 2018 by MDFlier

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

3 hours ago, MDFlier said:

Update: I tried many other things. I tried switching back to DX9, disabling scenery areas, and a few others.

 

Did you ever ask them on their forum? Maybe they have a suggestion?

[scianoir 610]

It's probably no consolation to you but I have just checked my installation of Latin VFR KBWI (in FSX) and I can see the same pattern of multi-coloured lines running diagonally across the airport that are visible on the first screenshot in your initial post!

Bill

[Airbus 14]

I have been using LatinVFR KBWI FSX version on and off for about 3 months on a PC that is about 7 years old and have never seen the lines or artifacts that are described here. Hopefully someone who has had this problem and found a fix will respond.

My biggest problem had been trying to takeoff or land an aircraft at BWI before running out of VAS! I deactivated several options in the KBWI configuration utility and that helped. At first I a could not even start taxing my F1 B200 or Cessna Mustang before I got VAS alarms and the sim stopped. Even with my Aerosoft Airbus I could not takeoff! I have also reduced my FSX scenery level to "sparse" and this really helped.  Even with a sparse scenery setting the airport scenery was surprisingly good.

Hope you find a solution to your problem.

Airbus

[scianoir 610]

On 10/20/2018 at 2:38 AM, Airbus said:

I have been using LatinVFR KBWI FSX version on and off for about 3 months on a PC that is about 7 years old and have never seen the lines or artifacts that are described here. Hopefully someone who has had this problem and found a fix will respond.

My biggest problem had been trying to takeoff or land an aircraft at BWI before running out of VAS! I deactivated several options in the KBWI configuration utility and that helped. At first I a could not even start taxing my F1 B200 or Cessna Mustang before I got VAS alarms and the sim stopped. Even with my Aerosoft Airbus I could not takeoff! I have also reduced my FSX scenery level to "sparse" and this really helped.  Even with a sparse scenery setting the airport scenery was surprisingly good.

Hope you find a solution to your problem.

Airbus

I agree Latin VFR KBWI is a heavy hitter from a VAS viewpoint and I too struggle to complete a flight there using ‘average’ FSX settings with anything other than the default Baron and, even using that, there won’t be much VAS remaining after flying a circuit. I do however have an FSX configuration within SimStarterNG to cope with scenarios with very heavy VAS demands and I can regain a few hundred extra MB of available VAS by using that and as you say the scenery still looks good with many of the sliders moved towards the left although my KBWI is almost devoid of AI aircraft!

With regard to the diagonal lines however, I remain curious as to why two of us are seeing these in FSX and one of us is not! I initially thought that this might have been down to the Whatsup KBWI freeware scenery which I had previously installed and which came with additional freeware scenery for the area from Soarfly. However, as MDFlier said in an earlier post, these were installed in their own folders and were easy to remove completely. I don’t think I ever installed any other freeware for KBWI and, although I do have a few other freeware Maryland airports on my system, none of these are particularly close to KBWI. The mystery continues and although the issue is relatively minor and doesn’t bother me too much, I fear the challenge of resolving it is going to keep niggling at me!

Bill

[MDFlier 2,031]

On 10/19/2018 at 9:32 AM, scianoir said:

It's probably no consolation to you but I have just checked my installation of Latin VFR KBWI (in FSX) and I can see the same pattern of multi-coloured lines running diagonally across the airport that are visible on the first screenshot in your initial post!

Bill

Thank you, Bill. And yes, it is consolation to me. I'll stop pulling my hair out looking for a fix.

23 hours ago, scianoir said:

I agree Latin VFR KBWI is a heavy hitter from a VAS viewpoint and I too struggle to complete a flight there using ‘average’ FSX settings with anything other than the default Baron and, even using that, there won’t be much VAS remaining after flying a circuit. ..

Bill

I ran into this on my last flight. I have Taxi2Gate's KMCO and FSDT KIAD. I regularly fly between the two with no issues whatsoever. My first flight from KMCO to KBWI ended with me landing on a blurry mess of an airport with an out of memory crash just as I exited the runway. Something is not right. KIAD is just about as large and detailed as KBWI, and I have no issues there.

[MDFlier 2,031]

I tried another KMCO-KBWI flight yesterday. I passed over Richmond at around FL24and then FSDT KIAD at around 10,000'. Near RIC, I was getting 75-100FPS and had perfect ground scenery below. FSDT KIAD was clear and sharp, surrounding area looked nice, and FPS were 30-50. On approach to 15R at BWI, surrounding scenery was missing, blurry, or popping in. Had a VAS error on touchdown. Oddly enough, I ignored the Windows dialog with the error message, and was able to taxi off the runway before I clicked Ok in the dialog which immediately shutdown the sim.

I then flew KMCO-KIAD and had a perfect flight with perfect scenery.

Something is definitely not right. Fortunately, it affects multiple users so they'll be taking a look at it for sure.

I guess I'll need to think about P3D sooner rather than later...

[MDFlier 2,031]

On 10/21/2018 at 7:12 AM, scianoir said:

...With regard to the diagonal lines however, I remain curious as to why two of us are seeing these in FSX and one of us is not! I initially thought that this might have been down to the Whatsup KBWI freeware scenery which I had previously installed and which came with additional freeware scenery for the area from Soarfly. However, as MDFlier said in an earlier post, these were installed in their own folders and were easy to remove completely. I don’t think I ever installed any other freeware for KBWI and, although I do have a few other freeware Maryland airports on my system, none of these are particularly close to KBWI. The mystery continues and although the issue is relatively minor and doesn’t bother me too much, I fear the challenge of resolving it is going to keep niggling at me!

Bill

MYSTERY SOLVED!!! (sorta)

I had a saved flight from December, 2016. We had a major snow storm that was loads of fun to fly in, so I saved the approach into BWI as a flight. I just flew that immediately after starting FSX and I noticed the lines were gone. I reset the time & date to current, and they reappeared. I then went mack to change date and time, and picked "spring". FSX selected May 2nd. NO LINES! Back to current time, lines reappeared. 

Now that I can isolate it to the season, Iguess I should get over to the LatinVFR page and let them know about it. I hate reporting something to a company that turns out to be a 3rd party problem. I manage a technical support group for a large computer company. People do that all the time to us.

As a side note, I uninstalled Orbx Vector just to see if it made a difference. I haven't tried KMCO-KBWI yet.

 

Edited October 23, 2018 by MDFlier
forgot the evidence...

[scianoir 610]

Thanks for the feedback!

I don't have Orbx Vector, instead using the vector data from UTX but I will try a different season too and see if that resolves the issue for me also!

Bill

[MDFlier 2,031]

After uninstalling Orbx Vector, I was able to complete the flight between KMCO and KBWI without blurries or VAS issues. It was perfect. I'll re-install and test again just to make sure I hadn't changed some Windows setting or something else that fixed it. If it turns out to be Vector, I'll start removing things or lowering settings to get it running with Vector installed.

Edited October 25, 2018 by MDFlier